Apple's World Wide Developer Conference 2025 Keynote was streamed today. As expected, Apple introduced a slew of new features, including enhancements for all of Apple's platforms. Let us start with numbering.

Numbering

Apple has a number of operating systems, six to be exact. This includes iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. Each of these has been introduced at different times, so their numbering has varied. Last year, iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS were all version 18. visionOS was 2, macOS was 15, and watchOS was 11. This could make it more difficult to be able to figure out which of an operating system correlates to another. This year, this all changes. The various numbers are hard enough for developers to keep track of which versions are compatible, let alone most users.

Now, all of Apple's operating systems, and some apps, including Xcode, will all have the same number, 26. As an example, iOS 26, or macOS 26. This means that it should become significantly easier to figure out if your devices are on the same versions. You might be thinking "it is 2025, so why is it 26“? Well, it is similar to car models, where the car released this year is for next year's model number. Similarly, Apple's operating systems are released in the fall, and most users do not get updates until November, so this approach makes sense.

The numbering is not the only big change; there is also an all-new design, so let us look at that.

Liquid Glass

The last major redesign for Apple's platforms was with iOS 7, back in 2013. When Apple did the design for iOS 7, they focused just on one operating system, and then brought it to macOS in 2014 with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. After 12 years, there is a new design, called Liquid Glass. Liquid Glass is a redesign of more than just iOS. This time, it spans across all of Apple's operating systems. This will give them all a common look, but will still allow each operating system to be its own.

Liquid Glass is designed to have controls be transparent and show the background. Much like actual glass, the background colors will shine through and the background will refract through the elements to shine through. This applies to all operating systems and controls across them.

The new material, Liquid Glass, is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world. Its color is informed by surrounding content and intelligently adapts between light and dark environments. Born out of a close collaboration between the design and engineering teams, Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering and dynamically reacts to movement with specular highlights. This creates a lively experience that makes using iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV even more delightful.

Beyond the look, the new design is also designed to get out of the way when necessary. As an example, for the tab bar, it is now floating. Within the Music app, the "Now Playing" items float towards the bottom, and are expanded, like they are below.

Yet, when you scroll the tab bar will collapse, as to get out of the way, so you can see more of your content, like the image below shows.

Having a consistent look across all of Apple's operating systems should be a good thing. There are some that will not like the new look of Liquid Glass at first glance, but Apple is likely to tweak things, but it is not guaranteed. We will have to see what Apple ultimately chooses to do. Let us now move to another item, Communications.

Communications

One of the most used features of Apple's operating systems is to communicate with others. This may be through email, FaceTime, the Phone, and of course Messages. Messages will be getting a few enhancements, like background images for chats, and even polls, so everyone can vote on something. Additionally, typing indicators, and Apple Pay will be integrated into group chats. Messages will now also automatically filter out "Unknown Senders" to their own group, they will not show in your main list. Instead, they will be go to a separate list. You can set them as "known senders" and they will appear in main list. These changes will come to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.

The Phone app is also getting some new features. This includes Hold Assist, Call Screening, and Live Translations. With Hold Assist, your call can stay connected, but you can continue to use your phone. You will be notified when an agent comes onto the line. Call Screening will allow you to screen phone calls before picking them up. Live Translations will allow you to automatically have speech by others translated into your language and vice versa. The Phone app also gets a redesign with Favorites, recents, and voicemails all appearing in a single view. You can also pin your favorites to the top so you can easily place a call with a single tap.

Furthermore, the Phone app now comes to iPad and the Mac, and they also get the same features. This means you can make phone calls directly from you other devices, albeit through your iPhone.

Let us look at some iPad specific changes.

iPadOS

When the iPad was first released, it was effectively a larger version of an iPhone without the phone. This worked okay for a while, but the iPad is its own device. In 2019 Apple separated iOS into two versions, iOS for the iPhone, and iPadOS, for the iPad. This was done because the iPad is its own device and has its own unique interactions and control mechanisms. Even with the changes, like TrackPad support, the Magic Keyboard, things like Stage Manager, many have noticed that the iPad hardware has far outpaced the iPad software. iPadOS 26 makes some major changes.

iPadOS 26 brings a new multitasking approach to the iPad, with windowing. You can now have multiple windows, minimize, resize, and tile any windows. You can tap on an icon and bring back up the windows for that app. One of the most important aspects to this feature is how iPadOS will remember your previous window size and positions. This works not just on an iPad, but also with external displays.

Windows will have familiar features, like the "Stoplights", to close, minimize, and maximize buttons. Along with this, you have a resize anchor in the lower right corner of all windows. Having windows, and being able to arrange them as needed is great. However, there may be instances when you would prefer to be able to quickly access features. This is now possible with the Menu Bar.

Much like on macOS, iPadOS apps can now display a Menu Bar. This can make apps feel even more like those on macOS and it will allow you to quickly access features, without needing to hunt for them.

Games

Apple is adding a new app to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS called Games. The Games app will allow you to view all of your current games in one spot. You can also check out Apple Arcade games and invite friends to play. Along with this, you can also challenge your friends on leaderboards in specific games to try and beat their score. Additionally, Apple is adding support for the Playstation VR2 Sense controller for the Vision Pro.

Apple Intelligence

Apple is continuing to expand Apple Intelligence with some new features like integration with ChatGPT so you can create additional styles in Image Playground, like making an image look like an oil painting. Visual Intelligence is expanding beyond what you see on your camera to include anything that you are viewing within an app. So, now you can take a screenshot and take an action, like finding where to buy a lamp, or even adding a calendar entry for an event you want to go to.

WatchOS will help you with your workouts by giving you updates on your current workout, but also including historical workouts. As an example, if you are on a run and your last mile was your best one, your Apple Watch may say "You just ran your best mile this week at a pace of 8 minutes and 36 seconds", or something along those lines.

The big thing, for developers anyway, is that they can now use Apple's own on-device models. This means that they do not need to include a device model within their app. This means that they can reduce the size of their app downloads and use on-device processing, including extended background processing.

Compatibility

It is not uncommon for new versions of Apple's operating systems to drop support for older devices. Here are the supported devices.

iPhone

• iPhone SE 2nd Generation and later
• iPhone 11 and later

iPad

• iPad mini (5th generation and later)
• iPad (8th generation and later)
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later)
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later)

Apple Watch

• Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)
• Apple Watch Series 6 and later
• Apple Watch Ultra

Macs

• Mac Pro (2019 and later)
• Mac Studio (2022 and later)
• Mac mini (2020 and later)
• iMac (2020 and later)
• 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019 and later)
• MacBook Pro (13‑inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Air with Apple Silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)

Closing Thoughts

What I have provided above is just a brief overview of the list of changes. There are a bunch more changes, like Apple Intelligence gaining new functions and features, or Spotlight on macOS getting new features like natural language search, or the Files getting more features like assigning colors to a folder, or even adding an emoji.

You can check out all of the features on Apple's OS Previews page.

Sources:

Apple Newsroom:

• Apple Intelligence
• iOS 26
• iPadOS 26
• Liquid Glass
• macOS 26 Tahoe

For the last couple of months, I have been trying to coalesce my thoughts about my thoughts about Apple. I tried writing a post about Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and her order against Apple, but many others have covered that. I also then tried to write an article about how developers currently feel about how Apple is treating them, but again, others have done a much better job. I have not been able to really articulate my thoughts. I have been trying to figure out exactly how I feel, and the closest I can come is that I am just completely indifferent about Apple. This feeling hit most acutely last night when I realized that I will not be watching all of Apple’s WWDC keynote this year, at least not while it is initially streaming, and it does not bother me, which is not how I would have felt in previous years.

WWDC Keynote

Next Monday, June 9th, 2025, Apple will be streaming the keynote for its World Wide Developer Conference. This will start at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. In the past, I would work in the morning (I start between 4:30 and 5:00), but about a half hour before the keynote starts, I would make sure I had everything ready to go. This includes queuing up the stream on my Apple TV and making sure my MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone are nearby. I would watch the keynote and take notes. I would then post an overview of what was announced. While writing up what was announced, I would upgrade my devices to the first developer version of the new operating systems. I would then watch the Platforms State of the Union, which is basically the nerdy developer keynote. However, this year, that will not be happening.

My day job includes building an internal iPad app that is used every single day by dozens of people. Along with this, I am in charge of managing the iPads that are used. So, WWDC directly relates to my job, and I often block off the week of WWDC to watch videos. I even put in an "Out of Office" message, letting people know that I am attending a conference, but not this year. It is not that I will not be watching any videos; I will. I will end up watching the keynote, albeit probably in two parts. I will end up watching the Platforms State of the Union, but most likely not until Tuesday morning. This year, I did not even block off time in my work calendar indicating that I will be attending WWDC, albeit virtually. Instead, it will just be another work week. I know I will end up watching at least one of the videos, Managing Apple Devices, because that directly relates to work.

Instead of participating in WWDC, a work meeting was scheduled. While discussing possible dates for the meeting, it did not even occur to me that WWDC was one of those weeks. It completely slipped my mind. In years past, I would have made sure to block off time for WWDC as soon as the dates were announced. I am just not enthusiastic about what Apple has to offer. I am sure part of the feeling is the fact that I am not writing a book about the new operating systems, so I do not need to watch a lot of the videos, so there is no urgent need to watch them.

Beyond this, I do not think I will be posting a wish list for what I would like to see from WWDC. I am just indifferent to Apple at this point. Their hardware is top-notch. I will continue to use my devices because they really are great. Their software needs to have a lot of bugs fixed. Apple has been chasing new features and has left significant bugs just lingering in the software, and it does not seem like Apple cares about the quality of its software anymore.

Warner Crocker has posted a list of some of his issues, and he is not wrong about any of them. I agree with this quote:

If you allow a reliable, yet ignored "bug" to remain through several operating systems, it essentially becomes a feature the longer it’s not addressed.

While these types of bugs do not have any major impact on day-to-day activities, they do add up and show that "quality" is just a PR tactic, not something they actually care about.

Undecided

I have not yet decided on whether or not I will be posting an overview of what Apple announces at WWDC. If I do, it may not be right away, like I have in the past. For all of the features, others will have the details on Monday, shortly after they are announced, or at least shortly after the end of the keynote.

Additionally, I have not decided if I will install the betas this year. As mentioned previously, including above, I will not be writing a book, so I do not feel compelled to install the first developer beta. It ultimately will come down to whether or not there is anything interesting and compelling enough to warrant installing the betas. If I do install them, I may opt for the public betas this year, instead of the developer ones. My Mac Studio will not be getting any betas on it, that is the one device I do not install betas on, release candidates, yes, but not betas.

The surgeons behind the game have been busy and have had added another season of questions. Questions for season 6 are now in the app. This brings the total number of questions to 4,102 questions for all six seasons. In Season 6 we are introduced to Charles Emeson Winchester III, and all of his superiority.

Be sure to update the app, and test your knowledge. If you do not have the app, you can check out the questions at https://mashtrivia.app

If there are any issues, be sure to email support. This is can be done via the "About" screen within the app.

If you know me at all, you are likely aware that I do not like to be the center of attention. I rarely highlight my own achievements, and I do not like promoting myself in any manner. This is just how I am.

Back in 2014, Apple announced a new product category, the Apple Watch. It would not be made available until April 24th, 2015. One of the focuses of the Apple Watch is fitness, and in order to motivate people to use the Apple Watch, Apple gamified exercise a bit. This was done by allowing you to see how long you have had any of the three items tracked: standing hours, exercise minutes, and calories burned, and users could set their own goals for each of these.

The Apple Watch was one of the products that I ordered that I did not receive on day one. Instead, my Apple Watch did not arrive until May 1st, 2015. Even if I started using it on May 1st, I would not have been able to get my standing hours in. On May 2nd, 2015, I started my streaks and kept it up the rest of May, that was until May 31st. On May 31st, I did not get in my exercise minutes nor did I meet my calorie goal. The reason that I did not get this was because I had spent that entire week doing significant work to move buildings at work. This included staying up significantly late and getting little sleep. Therefore, my next move streak would begin on June 1st.

Today my "Longest Move Streak" is 3650 days, making it 10 full years of a continuous move streak. It is strange to think about the fact that it has been 10 years, not only because I have been wearing a watch for 10 years, but also because this means that I have had to jump through some hoops to keep the streak alive. One of the more precarious is the fact that for a portion of that time, health and fitness data was not synchronized over iCloud. Instead, it was backed up to your phone, so you would have to transfer the data from phone to phone, or via a backup on a computer. In all of that time, my data has stayed intact. Additionally, a vast majority of this time was during an era where you could not pause your streaks if needed; therefore, even when I did not feel all that well, I still managed to get all of my exercise, move, and standing goals accomplished.

I know some are probably thinking "big deal", but it is still a significant feat. I do not know how long the streak will go; it is entirely possible that it will end at some point, but until then, I will keep trying to keep all of my fitness streaks going.

As they have over the last few years, Apple has unveiled its latest set of acccessibility features that will be arriving on Apple's platforms later this year. The list of items being added this year span all of Apple's platforms, as well as the App Store.

Accessibility Labels on the App Store

It is difficult for users to determine how much accessibility is put into an app without downloading it and testing it. In an attempt to help remedy this, Apple is adding "Accessibility Nutrition Labels" to the App Store. These will work in a similar manner as the Private Nutirition Labels.

The Accessibility Nutrition Labels will provide users information about the type of featurs that are supported within the app. This could be something like VoiceOver, Dark Interface, Reduced Motion, Audio Descriptions and more.

It is not known whether these will be automatically generated, or, if like the Privacy Labels, they will be dependent on reporting from the developer.

New Magnifier for the Mac

One of the more common issues for users is that they may not be able to easily see their surroundings. IF you have an iPhone or an iPad, this is easily accomplished with the magnifier. But now, this is coming to macOS. macOS will have an all-new magnifier that will use the Mac's camera to be able to zoom in on the surroundings.

Along with this, if you have a camera in Desk View, you will be able to read documents, as well as adjusting the brightness and contrast so that you can read the documents.

Accessibility Reader

One feature that is within Safari is the ability to view a webpage without a lot of the extra junk around it, like ads, menus, and side columns, leaving just the text. iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS will be getting a similar system-wide feature called "Accessibility Reader". Accessibility Reader is accessible from any app and even gives you the ability to customize the font, color, and spacing to view text that makes it easiest on you.

New Braille Experience

Not everyone is sighted, and instead these people need a different way, for some VoiceOver works well, but for others, they may need Braille. For those who need Braille, there is a new experience. Users who are connected braille device can easily open apps with that device, or by using the Braille Screen Input screen.

With Braille Access users will be able to quickly take notes in braille format, or even perform calculations using Nemeth Braille, which is a code often used for math and science within the Braille community.

Closing Thoughts

These are just a few of the new features that are coming to Apple's platforms. Some others include things like larger text within CarPlay, Custom Equalizer settings for sound detection, and even more customization for Music Haptics. It is good to see additional accessibility options being added across Apple's platforms. These features allow an even wider range of users to use Apple's platforms in a manner which helps them.

Source: Apple Newsroom

The surgeons behind the game have been busy and have had added another season of questions. Questions for season 5 are now in the app. This brings the total number of questions to 3,390 questions for all five seasons.

Be sure to update the app, and test your knowledge. If you do not have the app, you can check out the questions at https://mashtrivia.app

If there are any issues, be sure to email support. This is can be done via the "About" screen within the app.

Today Apple announced the dates for this year’s World Wide Developer Conference. Those dates will be from Monday, June 9th, 2025 to Friday, June 13th, 2025.

As has been the case for the last few years, it will be a free event and sessions will be streamed. Additionally, as Apple has done the last few years they are also holding a special event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California.

You can apply to attend. There are a limited number of people who will be able to attend the in-person event. Applications are accepted through Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025.

Apply now for an opportunity to join us in person at Apple Park, where you'll watch the Keynote and Platforms State of the Union with fellow developers, meet with Apple experts one-on-one and in group labs, explore the campus, and take part in special activities.

In order to be eligible to apply, you need to be an Apple Developer, or Enterprise Developer. If you are a Swift Student challenge winner between 2023 and 2025, you can also apply. Winner for this year's Student Challenge will be announced on Thursday, March 27th, 2025.

Source: Apple Newsroom

There is an analogy that someone made once, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the longer you are around, the faster it goes". I am sure this is mostly accurate. Time is a funny thing when you truly think about it because time, as we know it, is a man-made concept. Yes, it does follow the cycle of the planet and the stars, but overall, what we define as "time" is a man-made idea. Our lives are dictated by the clock. Time is a vague concept that we each experience at our own rates. I am pretty confident that at some points, everyone finds that time drags, and yet at other times, it seems that time goes by in the blink of an eye. While time varies on a moment-to-moment basis, it adds up, and ultimately, a great length of time can pass without truly realizing it.

It is weird to think that my blog is now over 20 years old. I know for a fact that I have had a blog more than 20 years ago because the first post that I have on here states that I started all over, meaning that there was a version before. I attempted to see if I could find an older version, but the first pull of the site by archive.org is a few months after the site started. Over the last 20 years, the site has gone through a number of changes, including hosting providers, software that powers it, the layout, and of course, the type of content that I post.

Infrastructure

The hosting services that I have used have been varied. I started out using a computer and hosting it at home (yes, I’m that much of a nerd). It was also a different time, when ISPs actually permitted things like that. I was using that setup until November of 2006 when I moved to an actual hosting provider, GoDaddy. When I had GoDaddy, it was basically shared hosting of 200MB of storage and 2.5GB of transfer. At the time, it was adequate for my needs. Shared hosting is good in some ways, but limiting in others. Because I needed additional access, I ended up moving to a different hosting provider, called MediaTemple.

I know I ended up moving to MediaTemple, but I honestly do not really know when that was. I suspect that it was sometime around 2008 or 2009. I do not have any bills or emails for them from that time. I used MediaTemple until I ended up switching to another service provider, Linode.

Even though I do not know when I switched to MediaTemple, I do know when I switched from MediaTemple to Linode. I switched back in August of 2013. Coincidentally, GoDaddy ended up acquiring MediaTemple just two months later, in October of 2013. Since August of 2013, I have hosted my sites on Linode. Linode is designed as a virtual server environment. This means that you will need to know how to manage a server. Managing a server is not for everyone, but it is something that I do not mind doing, and it allows for more control over the server, but it also comes with additional responsibility. I do not anticipate switching away from Linode, but it is entirely possible that I might switch at some point, but I do not have any plans to do so. Now, let’s move to software.

Software

A server is just one aspect of a website. It also needs some sort of software to display a website. The bare minimum needed is a webserver, of some sort. Today, there are a variety of web server options, including LightHTTP, Jetty, Apache, and Nginx. When I first started my website, there were many fewer options. Due to its ubiquity, I started with Apache. However, the Apache Webserver has become quite mature, and was initially released in 1996. While I initially used Apache, I have since moved to using Nginx as my webserver of choice. I opted to use Nginx because I found it to be faster than Apache’s HTTP server on the same hardware.

I have been creating websites, and programming in general, since 1997. While I started out creating static webpages, I have, as you might have surmised, moved onto making dynamic websites. My first dynamic sites were using Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), now called Classic ASP. I went with this because it is what I could easily find resources for at the time. It was a few years later when I switched away from using ASP, to using PHP. Again, I do not recall when this actually occurred, but I suspect it was sometime around late 2004, which would’ve been the PHP 4.3.4 era.

As for software that actually powers the website, that has changed over time. Over the years I have had three different software packages to power my site. I used a piece of software called "Pivot Log" for a couple of years, but then on May 7th, 2007 I moved to WordPress. I continued to use it for more than 15 years, until October 2022.

As outlined in my post Rebuilding the site: Moving away from WordPress that I posted on October 28th, 2022, I published an entirely rebuilt version of my website. Now, it is a statically generated site. This effectively means that the pages are generated once and then published to my web server, which will then serve the pages as they were generated. Static webpages are generally faster than dynamic ones. If you think about it, even briefly, it makes sense. All you have to do is read the page from the a disk. Each file is small, so it should not take very long. Besides the speed, static sites do not require much software upkeep, besides the server software. Static sites, of course, have downsides as well, because any change requires a complete rebuild of the site. Let us now turn to the content of the website.

Content

As mentioned above, there has been a variety of content posted on the site. It has ranged from site-related updates, life updates, news, thoughts, and of course, Apple-related content. When I moved away from WordPress to my current static site, I ended up removing some posts, mostly the Daily Run Down items. The reason I removed these was because many of the links were no longer valid. Additionally, the news posts were of their time and no longer relevant.

Along with this, I did remove some additional posts. These were posts that were videos. These posts were removed for two reasons. Either the views were removed from YouTube or the posts were removed from their source sites; therefore, it was prudent to remove these posts. I also did remove some of my older posts because they are no longer ones that I want on the site.

I am not sure what additional content might be posted in the future. As you might have noticed, the frequency of content has changed over the years. I opted to do a look at the number of posts, and there have been a number of months where I did not post much at all. Most notably between September and November of 2009. But, that was a busy time with buying a house. Other months, though, have been quite busy. October 2015 and October 2021 are the busiest with 41 posts in each month. A majority of the posts for these months were my "Device Availability" posts. These posts are ones that track the current availability of Apple devices. A majority of the time, it is the iPhone, but it has also been the iPad.

I have done my Device Availability posts for a number of years and these are, mostly, automated. The posting is not, but the data gathering is automated. When I first began posting, the data gathering was entirely manual and I ended up switching to automatic retrieval so I could have more detailed information. I have not yet decided if I will continue doing the Device Availability posts the next time a new device is released. If I do, it would need to be a device that can be easily tracked, like the iPhone or iPad. Macs are not easily tracked due to the sheer number of options that Apple has. iPhone and iPads have a number of options, but these are color and size, not processors. Let us now look at distributing content.

Syndication

I have never considered my site to be a "must visit" and destination site. My site is not a news aggregator nor is it popular enough for people to have as their homepage. In order for people to see my content, I need to post it to places. Over the course of time, this has changed.

When I first started my site, Google would be the way that people found my site. And for a while, I do think people used that to find it. However, I also started posting to other sites, in particular, social media.

For the longest time, I posted to Twitter, but that stopped when I stopped using the site due to the change in ownership. Beyond this, they decided to down-rank posts with links in them; thus making it more difficult to get reach for a post. I also used to post to Facebook, but they stopped allowing people to post to their personal Facebook profiles, via the API, back in April of 2018. You can still post to a Facebook Page, but I do not have a Facebook page. I have stopped using Facebook; I deactivated my account back in February after not logging into it for like six weeks.

The other place that I have posted to is Apple News. I use this because a vast majority of my posts are about Apple, so it would make sense. I am not sure if I will continue using this. It is not because it is difficult to create an Apple News compatible file; I have a custom script that will do so. The big reason I do not know if I will continue is because I do not get many views when I post. So, I am not sure if it makes sense to continue to post there or not.

Posting to sites was made a bit easier when I was using WordPress, because there were plugins that took care of the functionality for me. These would post when I hit the "publish" button. Additionally, updates would automatically be made if I updated the posting. Now, I have to handle all of this manually.

These days I post to both Mastodon and Bluesky. I have created custom code that I use to post to these sites. I have two tags in the metadata info of each of my markdown files that will pull the text to use for posting the summarization of what I post.

Since the inception of my blog, one way to consume the posts has been RSS. To this day, my site has an RSS feed. If you have some sort of aggregator, feel free to follow using your favorite RSS reader.

Closing Thoughts

It surely does not seem like it has been 20 years. I honestly do not know if the site will be around in 20 years. If I’m still around, it’s likely that the site will be as well. I do have a few ideas for some changes, but I am not sure when those changes will happen. One thing is for certain: the site has not stayed the same over the last 20 years; it has seen significant changes. It is quite likely that I will continue to post and make changes to the site. 20 years from now, if the site is still around, it will undoubtedly look completely different from its current iteration. But only time will ultimately tell what changes the site will have in the future.

Today, Apple gave an official statement to John Gruber at Daring Fireball about a delay of Apple's more personalized Siri. The quote is:

Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.

My Thoughts

Software is not easy. Many developers make it look easy, but it is far from ever actually being easy. Apple's current crop of Apple Intelligence features are, in my opinion, quite lackluster. Out of Apple's list of currently available Apple Intelligence features, only Writing Tools and Genmoji are ones that are any good.

I use Writing Tools mostly as a glorified proofreader, even though it can do more, I never use those features.

Sometimes the official set of emojis are not enough, and Genmoji can help create new emojis for those situations where there is not one that works for you. Genmoji is good in that it is based on Apple's own emoji graphics, so they have full rights to use the emojis to build new ones.

One axiom that I think bears repeating, never buy a product for what it could potentially do. Instead, purchase a product for what it is capable of doing at the time of purchase. Often, purchasing a product for what it could potentially do is a losing proposition. This is because software features can, and often, are pulled before release, as is exemplified with the "More Personalized Siri" with Apple Intelligence.

Source: Daring Fireball

Today Apple unveiled two new Mac Studio models, one with the M4 Max and another with the M3 Ultra. This comes with some big changes. Before we dive into those, let us look at the similarities between the previous models. This is the first time there have been two different-generation chips in the Mac Studio.

Common Features

The two variants have many things in common. The port configurations are the same as the previous model. There is an HDMI port, 10Gbps Ethernet, and four Thunderbolt ports on the back. The M4 Max comes with two USB-C ports on the front, while the M3 Ultra comes with two Thunderbolt ports on the front. This is the same configuration as the M2 Max/M2 Ultra configurations. There is still the SDXC card slot on the front, a 10Gbps connection, and a headphone jack.

The Thunderbolt on the M4 Max and M3 Ultra has gone from Thunderbolt 4 to Thunderbolt 5. Thunderbolt 5 can deliver speeds at 120Gbps, which is 3x faster than Thunderbolt 4.

M4 Max

The M4 Max comes in two variants: a 14-core CPU and 32-core GPU model, and a 16-core CPU with a 40-core GPU. The difference between these two is that the lower-end model is only capable of 36GB of unified memory, while the 16-core CPU model can be configured with 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB of memory.

According to Apple, the M4 Max is 1.6x faster with Adobe Photoshop, up to 2.1x faster building with Xcode, 1.2x faster ProRes transcode in Compressor, and 1.6x faster in Topaz Video AI, when compared to the M1 Max.

The M3 Ultra can support up to six Pro Display XDRs at 6K resolution, eight 4K displays, and three 8K displays.

The M4 Max continues to start at $1999 for the 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 36GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. It can be configured up to $5899 for the 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB of unified memory, and 8TB of storage.

M3 Ultra

The M3 Ultra is a brand-new chip. The M3 Ultra is similar to the previous "Ultra" chips, in that it is two M3 Max chips with an interconnect. According to Apple, there are over 10,000 interconnects between the two M3 Max chips. Since there are two M3 Max chips interconnected, the memory configurations are different. You have the option of 96GB, 256GB, or 512GB of memory. The 512GB of memory is only available with the 80-core GPU version.

Similarly, there are slightly different storage options. You have the same, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB options as are on the M4 Max. However, there is a new 16TB option. This is available on both M3 Ultra variants. However, it will cost you an additional $4600 to be exact.

According to Apple, the M3 Ultra is 16.9x faster generating tokens using an LLM in LM Studio, 2.6x faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift, 1.1x faster base calling for DNSA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW, and 1.4x faster 8K video rendering with Final Cut Pro, when compared to the M1 Max. Of course, there is an even larger performance improvement when compared to an Intel-based Mac Pro with Radeon Pro W5700X.

The M3 Ultra can support up to 8 Pro Display XDRs at 6K resolution, eight 4K displays, and four 8K displays. This is great for those who need it.

The M3 Ultra starts at $3999 for the 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU with 96GB and 1TB storage. It can be configured up to $14,099 for the M3 Ultra with 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU with 512GB of unified memory, and 16TB of storage.

Different Generations

As mentioned above, this is the first time that Apple has offered two different Apple Silicon generations for the Mac Studio. The reason for the difference is that the "Ultra" series of chips does take additional time to produce. In order to be able to get a work chip, all connections between the interposer need to be functional in order to meet the specifications. It takes time to get that done.

It is not known whether or not Apple will introduce an M4 Ultra chip or not. According to ArsTechnica:

When asked why the high-end Mac Studio was getting an M3 Ultra chip instead of an M4 Ultra, Apple told us that not every chip generation will get an “Ultra” tier.

Closing Thoughts

The addition of an M4 Max and M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio is a significant upgrade over the M2 Max/M2 Ultra versions. If you are in the market, then it might be a good time to upgrade. You can pre-order the Mac Studio today and it will begin arriving March 12th, although some model are already later in March.

Source: Apple Newsroom